1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to microreactors, and more particularly, to a microreactor that includes a mixing channel for mixing at least two kinds of raw materials, and a reaction channel connected to a downstream side of the mixing channel to receive the mixture flowing out therefrom and cause chemical reactions of the mixture inside the reaction channel.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been a blossoming of approaches to applying a microreactor, a device fabricated using microprocessing technology or the like to mix fluids in a microchannel, to biological and medical fields or to the field of chemical reactions.
Synthesis reactions in microreactors are known to have the feature that as the size of the reaction field decreases, the relative advantageous effects of a surface area with respect to the volume of the fluid will increase to provide extremely high heat-exchange efficiency. It is expected, therefore, that even a reaction liable to become uncontrollable because of heat in the batch method, a reaction that requires precise temperature control, and a reaction that requires rapid heating or cooling will be easily executable by using a microreactor. However, since a reaction rate, the heat of reaction, the number of side reactions, and the like will vary from reaction to reaction, the need will arise to optimize the performance of the microreactor according to the kind of reaction implemented.
Various development activities and studies on temperature controllability of microreactors have heretofore been performed. Firstly, JP-A-2003-47839, for example, discloses a microreactor adapted to selectively supply an electric current to a plurality of microheaters each having a specific length equal to an integral multiple of unit length and arrayed so that the respective lengths increase in order.
Secondly, JP-A-2003-47840, for example, proposes a microreactor having a plurality of microheaters along a plurality of microchannels provided in parallel to one another, and adapted so that the positions of the microheaters that are common to one another are each controlled as one control unit.
Thirdly, JP-A-2003-88754, for example, describes a microheater that includes a plurality of heat transfer procedures for supplying required heat energy, and heat transfer control procedures for controlling the temperatures of the plurality of heat transfer procedures.